Snap fastener socket



Jan. 18, 1966 s. T. SHEARS SNAP FASTENER SOCKET Filed Nov. 6, 1963 Invezzioa T. Shears,

United States Patent 3,229,343 SNAP FASTENER SOCKET Stuart T. Shears, Belmont, Mass., assignor to United-Carr Incorporated, a corporation of Delaware Filed Nov. 6, 1963, Ser. No. 321,962 4 Claims. (Cl. 24-216) This invention aims to provide improvements in snap fastener sockets of the type illustrated and described in US. Letters Patent Nos. 2,106,728 and 2,300,292 and so-called laundry-proof fastener sockets that have been manufactured and sold by several manufacturers during the past thirty years.

An object of the invention is to provide a snap fastener socket having a body portion with an attaching ring or prong clenching portion that is so shaped that the socket can be fed from a slotted hopper of an automatic attaching machine only the proper side up without the use of a central projecting wall portion that has been used heretofore as the means for proper feeding of the sockets.

Another object of the invention is to provide .a snap fastener socket of the type under consideration with its central wall portion shorter than usual so as to be relatively confined Within the socket body for protection against distortion when the socket is being attached.

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a plan view of a portion of an installation in which the improved socket member is used;

FIG. 2 is an enlarged section taken on the line 2-2 of FIG. 1, the stud member being shown in elevation;

FIG. 3 is a section similar to FIG. 2 except that an ordinary attaching ring is shown in place of the ornamental attaching member;

FIG. 4 is a front plan view of the socket member in FIG. 2;

FIG. 5 is a back plan view of the socket shown in FIG. 4; and

FIG. 6 is an edge View of the socket shown in FIGS. 4 and 5.

The particular type of snap fastener socket illustrated has had, and still enjoys, excellent commercial success; but there have been, and still are, applications where the socket has been distorted during attachment. The main reason has been the projection at the back of the socket which has been necessary to provide for feeding the socket proper side up from an automatic attaching machine having a rotary hopper from which the sockets are fed to a track through slots in the hopper and hopper back. When the previous shaped sockets have been attached to extra thick supports of cloth, leather, etc., relatively rigid supports such as cardboard, stiff leather, etc., or used with decorative prong ring parts such as hard plastic, motherof-pear etc., the pressure on the socket projection has distorted the yieldable portion of the socket to a point where the stud receiving aperture is too large for proper holding engagement with a co-operating stud.

Heretofore, any attempt to overcome that difiiculty has been to construct a socket that would have to be fed from a so-called pin type hopper and that type of hopper is not favored for attaching machines of the type generally used. Attempts have been made to lower the boss on the back of the socket and so shape the peripheral edge of the socket that it could only feed from a slotted hopper, the proper side up. Since the prong receiving attaching ring portion at the edge of the socket has to be formed by a curling operation, and no supporting tool can be used inside, attempts to provide a proper feeding shape have failed.

The disclosures of this invention will teach those skilled in the art how the problem may be solved and therefore one form of the invention will now be described with relation to the drawings.

The socket 1 of the invention is illustrated as being formed from a single piece of sheet metal having a body portion which includes a prong turning and clenching portion or attaching ring 2 and a central tubular wall 3 having a stud engaging lip 4 surrounding a stud receiving aperture 5, as shown in FIG. 5. To provide resiliency for engagement with a nonresilient stud the wall 3 and lip 4 are divided by any suitable number of slits 6.

It should be noted that the wall 3 does not extend beyond the back face of the socket to any appreciable extent (FIG. 6). Therefore, when the socket is attached to a support 7 (FIG. 2) there is no damaging pressure exerted upon the end of the wall 3. Thus one of the problems recited above has been overcome by this construction of the socket.

The other important feature of the invention is the shape of the outside peripheral wall of the attaching ring or prong turning and clenching portion 2. By eliminating any substantial projection of the wall 3 beyond the back face 8 of the socket, the socket could be fed either side up if, as in the prior constructions, the outside peripheral wall is semicircular. Therefore, the outside peripheral wall has been formed other than semicircular so that an exposed surface of the periphery of the socket is provided with different adjoining contours (FIG. 6) which cooperate with a proper shape of slot in the hopper and hopper back of an attaching machine so that the socket may be fed from the hopper only with the proper side up.

To provide the proper different adjoining contours of the periphery of the attaching ring 2 for proper feeding of the socket, it has been found that work hardening of the metal at a strategic point or points will permit formation by a quick bend 9 providing, with the front surface 10, one shape and a more gradual inwardly tapering surface 11 (FIG. 6) to provide another shape. Thus as will be obvious to anyone skilled in the fastener attaching machine art, this described and illustrated shape will permit the socket to feed from a hopper and hopper back to a track the proper side up because of the corresponding shape that can be provided in the hopper and hopper back.

It has been found that one way of providing the hardened portion at the proper place on the socket is to impress into the metal a groove or grooves (not shown). The illustrated way of providing the desired result is to impress the metal with crosshatching impressions 12 (FIGS. 2, 3 and 4). Other suitable methods of hardening the material are likewise contemplated.

When the socket 1 is attached to the support material 7 (FIG. 2) by the use of an ornamental attaching member 13 having attaching prongs 14, the socket and ornamental members are fed in an automatic attaching machine to the proper tools (not shown) and the parts 1 and 13 move toward each other so that the prongs 14 will pass through the material 7 and engage and be clenched by the prong turning and clenching portion or attaching ring 2, as shown in FIG. 2. It will be noted that the improved socket 1 and ornamental member 13 will tightly grip the supporting material 7 outside the circle of the attaching prongs 14, while the material 7 is not squeezed to any extent against the slightly projecting portion of the wall 3 thereby preventing any damaging pressure from being exerted upon the wall 3.

With reference to the disclosure of FIG. 3 the only difference between that and the disclsoure of FIG. 2 is that an ordinary pronged attaching ring 15 is used instead of the ornamental attaching member 13. Here again, there is no upsetting of the tubular Wall portion 3 of the socket by attaching tools during the attaching operation.

To complete the disclosure an ordinary snap fastener 3 stud 16 attached to supporting material 17 is shown in both FIGS. 2 and 3. While the improved snap fastener socket has been carefully illustrated and described it should be understood that the invention is best defined by the following claims.

I claim:

1. A fastener socket comprising a central tube provided with a stud receiving aperture and a prong turning and clenching portion circumscribing said central tube, said prong turning and clenching portion having an outer peripheral wall and an inner wall, said inner wall being between said central tube and said outer wall, a cross section of said prong turning and clenching portion describing a continuous are between a pair of parallel planes defining the upper and lower limits of said outer wall and said inner wall, said outer Wall, adjacent said inner wall,

describing a portion of said continuous arc on a radius shorter than the radius of the portion of said continuous arc described by said inner wall, said central tube being substantially confined between the upper and lower limits of said outer wall whereby said central tube is protected when the socket is being attached to a support.

2. A snap fastener socket according to claim 1 wherein said inner wall is provided with stiifening means adjacent said outer peripheral wall. I 7

3. A snap fastener socket according to claim 2 wherein said central tube is slotted to provide an integral stud engaging means adjacent said stud receiving aperture.

4. A snap fastener socket according to claim 1 wherein the inner wall is provided with a work hardened portion adjacent said peripheral wall for the purposes illustrated and described.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,125,125 7/1938 Reiter 242l6 2,589,962 3/1952 Reiter 242l6 FOREIGN PATENTS 6,323 1903 Great Britain. 798,718 7/1958 Great Britain.

WILLIAM FELDMAN, Primary Examiner.

DONLEY J. STOCKING, Examiner. 

1. A FASTENER SOCKET COMPRISING A CENTRAL TUBE PROVIDED WITH A STUD RECEIVING APERTURE AND A PRONG TURNING AND CLENCHING PORTION CIRCUMSCRIBING SAID CENTRAL TUBE, SAID PRONG TURNING AND CLENCHING PORTION HAVING AN OUTER PERIPHERAL WALL AND AN INNER WALL, SAID INNER WALL BEING BETWEEN SAID CENTRAL TUBE AND SAID OUTER WALL, A CROSS SECTION OF SAID PRONG TURNING SAID CLENCHING PORTION DESCRIBING A CONTINUOUS ARC BETWEEN A PAIR OF PARALLEL PLANES DEFINING THE UPPER AND LOWER LIMITS OF SAID OUTER WALL AND SAID INNER WALL, SAID OUTER WALL, ADJACENT SAID INNER WALL, DESCRIBING A PORTION OF THE CONTINUOUS ARC ON A RADIUS SHORTER THAN THE RADIUS OF THE PORTION OF SAID CONTINUOUS 